


Dragons On the Cliffside

by PanBoleyn



Series: The Iron Gauntlet and the Silk Glove [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Gen, House Blackfyre, House Brightflame, House Targaryen, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-11 14:09:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brightflame's heir and a daughter of Blackfyre, hidden away in the least of the Free Cities, their children and children's children biding their time until they can take what is theirs.</p><p>Chapter 7: If what happened to him becomes pointless, then something inside him will shatter to pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Crownless King, Rebel Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, dragon conspiracy theories gone wild. Also, eventually, my way of uniting several theories regarding a particular person's identity. You'll see.
> 
> Also, this is set in the world of Iron and Silk, though obviously most events will be occurring before those and it will be some time before anything from this has much effect on the main story. But it will, eventually, become quite relevant. 
> 
> (And indulge my obsession with Lorath - it kills me we know nothing about it, ok?)

She is lovely, but that isn’t why Balerion Targaryen (Rion, always Rion, a name that does not recall his father’s terrible folly) wants to marry Daena Blackfyre. A direct descendant of Daemon Blackfyre, she is a princess of the rebel line, and Rion is a king in exile.

****

He was passed over by the Great Council of Westeros when still a babe in arms, in favor of his uncle Aegon. Rion can see the logic of it, but that does not make it right. His father, madman that he was, was the elder son, and Rion should have come before his uncle. Still, he has no intention of making war. Daemon Blackfyre and Bittersteel tried that and failed. Rion, so far, has escaped notice, and he means to keep it that way.

****

He will never sit the Iron Throne himself. His uncle’s line is accepted and established now, and his father’s madness is too well remembered. He will never be King. But Rion is determined that one day, an heir of his line will be. Perhaps they must wait a generation, perhaps it will be ten. But there will come a time when a Brightflame Targaryen is King of Westeros. The chances of that go up all the higher if his blood mingles with that of the Blackfyres.

****

So he presents his suit to Daemon Blackfyre’s granddaughter Daena, whose father died alongside his own father in Westeros, fighting for the Iron Throne. She is not a woman to relish his plan of hiding.

****

“You would be best served by staking your claim, not hiding like a child. Though mayhaps you have no claim, as my grandfather declared,” she tells him, looking at him with cool indigo eyes.

****

Rion smiles, a flash of white teeth against sunburnt skin. “I have fought in the Second Sons, my lady, have won and lost. A war that cannot be won should not be fast, and too many remember my father.” Rion himself does not, but he knows the stories. His mother told him again and again, so he would never be a second Aerion. “As for my claim, Aegon’s son or Aemon the Dragonknight’s, my grandfather was recognized as his legal father’s heir, he was crowned King. That is claim enough for me.”

****

“Your uncle was crowned as well.”

****

“By a Council, who ignored succession law.”

****

“And yet, you do not claim the throne. Why then should I have any interest in wedding you?”

****

“I do not claim the throne... for _myself_.”

****

Ah, now something goes sharp in her eyes. “But for your line?”

****

“Exactly, my lady.”

****

“Princess,” she snaps.

****

“Is that so?” Rion asks with mocking irony. “And I am a King, Princess. We should inform our subjects of Westeros forthwith, and demand our rights then, should we not?”

****

“You _dare_ -”

****

“Peace, my lady. I mean only that - we take and keep what we earn. Titles are words, and words are wind. We must earn the throne, and that will take many steps. You and I are just the beginning.”

****

Daena shakes her head. “I have not said yes, Balerion.”

****

“I really do hate that name.”

****

“Oh, so you won’t quaff a cup of wildfire to become your namesake? How very dull.”

****

“You confuse me with my father,” Rion says, focusing on not reacting. He isn’t sure if he likes her spirit or wants to throttle her.

****

“Mayhaps. So, Rion, tell me. Where is it you would hide, to raise up this new dragon bloodline? Here in Volantis? In Qarth? Asshai? Braavos?”

****

“Lorath.”

****

Daena’s eyebrows shoot up, the first unguarded reaction she gives him. “Lorath. The Cliff City. The Little City.” Her voice is mocking. “Surely you jest.”

****

Rion grins, amused in earnest now. “I do not, Daena.” If she uses his given name, he will use hers. “And you have already shown why. Everyone overlooks Lorath. It stays out of the wars, trading chances to gain wealth and power for a confortable peace. Who would seek dragons there?”

****

Daena studies him for a long, long moment, eyes never leaving his. Then she laughs, delighted. “I think I might wed you after all, Rion Brightflame.”


	2. Lady of the Cliffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senya d'Altari will fight for her family - even if that means going against her parents' dreams.

Senya d’Altari studies herself in her silvered looking glass, meeting her reflection’s violet eyes. Today she weds the Duke of Lorath, a man twice her age with no children, in love with her for her arresting beauty, or so he says. Her mother Daena has a grittier view - the Duke likes young women, as most of the brothel owners in the city can attest. “But that does not matter; give him what he wants, and he will set us on the path to what we want.”

The d’Altari family is not what they pretend, a family that came to prominence because her father Rion is the best commander the City Guard has ever seen, a family with Valyrian looks because their blood is Lysene by way of Volantis. Theirs is the blood of Old Valyria; more, it is the blood of the Targaryens of Dragonstone, rulers of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. In Old Lor, from which many Lorathi surnames derive, ‘altari’ means flame, and with a proper letter before it as is custom, thus was their new name created.

Senya knows this, just as her siblings know it. Their father is Aerion Brightflame’s heir, their mother a Blackfyre princess. The Targaryens who sit the throne now are of a junior line, who should never have inherited. The d’Altari line waits for the day when they stumble, that canniness and planning, mayhaps subterfuge or all-out treachery, gives back the throne that ought to be theirs.

And so Senya has to marry, even when she would much rather not. Archon Mikal is not the worst man, for all that he prefers women half his age or less. No one speaks of cruelty, and though the lust in his eyes when they stand before the Winged Lady's altar turns her stomach, it is only desire.

If nothing else, she doesn't think he will beat her.

And her guess is right. Mikal's touch is never welcomes, but Senya grows tolerant of it. She even appreciates his love of her teenage body - if one must belong to a man, better to be a treasured object than not. And it gives her power, which she does enjoy. When she dresses in low-cut gowns of draping, clinging silk, belled sleeves displaying her wrists, sash accentuating her narrow waist, when she straddles him at night, silvery hair falling around them both...

Then she knows her power.

Soon, so does all the Duke's court. Her brother is an up-and-coming courtier there, and Daron has never been the most discreet of men. He gets himself into trouble with the r'Dartans, one of the oldest families of Lorath - Mikal's mother was a r'Dartan. No one thinks young Daron will survive their anger, until they see the pretty young Duchess whispering in her husband's ear.

The r'Dartans have a month to get out of the city to wait out their ruler's displeasure on the mainland. And soon everyone knows it is the Duchess they must please, because even as she begins to mature fully, somehow she still keeps the Duke's desire. Others wonder why, but Senya knows that it is because she is companion as well as siren - Mikal, as it turns out, is also a lonely man, and when his pretty little wife hangs on his every word, he is helpless. It is exactly what her mother wanted - or so Daena is meant to think.

But then, Senya’s youngest brother wants to leave Lorath for the colony city of Morosh with the merchant family his lady love belongs to. Isalena e'Faren is a sweet girl, and Jacen adores her, but Mother and Father wish him to marry into a stronger house as Senya has.

Jacen comes to her, asking her help, and Senya kisses his forehead as she did when he was small and had nightmares. A whisper to Mikal and it's done, Jacen and his sweet wife gone with the caravan before Rion and Daena know it's happened.

"How dare you!" Daena screams, one hand rising as though to strike. "We have plans, there is a throne to pre-"

Senya laughs. "I dare because I can! I can because you sold me like chattel and now I am a Duchess. And it is what you and Father wanted, but you should be careful what you wish for!"

"We are dragons, Visenya!"

It is not Senya's name, only the name hers is taken from. She almost pities her mother for her utter devotion to a hope that may never come to pass. "If we are dragons, Mother, then surely we have the right to choose our fates. I help Daron and Raena further your and Father's dream, do I not? I do all I can. But Jacen wants only to live quietly with Isalena. And he has a right to that!"

She and her mother never speak again.

Livilla is her first child, followed soon by Joesh, both with Mikal's dark hair and her own violet eyes. And though they are called l'Wilima after Mikal, they are hers. Little dragons, through and through. And she tells them of their ancestors, the good and the bad. Most of all she tells them their fate is their choice.

So when Joesh declares he has no interest in vying to be elected Duke of Lorath one day, that he would rather lead the City Guard as his grandfather did, she sends him off for more training as a fighter.

And Livilla? Somehow Senya isn't surprised when Livilla wants to wed Daron's son Alesander, who is the closest advisor to Duke Aram. Aram was just a youth when he was elected following Mikal's death, but he is doing quite well. Power, again, and the d'Altaris caught up with it.

Alesander and Livilla will further the dream of crowns, Senya imagines. And the rest of the family may join them or do as they will. It's not a bad tradition to have begun.

 


	3. The Prince of Tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julus d'Altari was never that interested in the goal of a crown and throne - but that doesn't mean he won't further the family cause when an opportunity presents itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the chapter where everything really starts to fall into place, the whole reason I created the d'Altaris in the first place. Basically, there are many theories about a certain character, and I wished to see if there was a way to reconcile them. Bear in mind that I doubt this is the reality of canon, but once I had the idea, well, I wanted to play with it. Also, you will note the lack of character updates - well, you see, that would spoil the surprise.
> 
> Oh, a tiny historical Easter egg in Julus' name, if you catch it. :)

Julus has never much cared about the royal goals of the d’Altari family. His cousin Lucen in Morosh - or, no, he moved to Lys, didn’t he? -  can have that obsession; he’s welcome to it. Oh, Julus would involve himself if a reason came, but he sees no need for it to rule his life. All Julus needs is his little fleet of five ships and their crews, a mixed bag of men from the Free Cities and beyond, the Summer Islands, Westeros, even Ibben. He’s something between a bodyguard and a sailor, a captain hired to guard merchant ships and diplomatic vessels.

It’s becalmed winds that leave them in Sunspear after escorting a Dornish merchant home from Qarth. Julus isn’t entirely surprised when he receives an invitation to attend the Princess of Dorne’s court; men like him are a change from monotony and offer fresh news of the world.

He is not prepared for Ariella Martell.

The newly-ascended Princess of Dorne is Julus’ own age, copper-skinned and dark haired, her black eyes impossible to look away from. She seems to like the look of him as well, judging from her smile. He isn’t in her bed that night, though the idea is tempting. He flirts with her, of course, but she only laughs at him.

“You will have to try better than that, Master d’Altari,” she says, mischief gleaming in those eyes of hers.

And so, he takes the time to learn what he can of the ruler of Dorne. She has only been ruling Princess for seven months, and before that was attendant at the court in King’s Landing, a companion to the young queen Rhaella Targaryen. They say she, Queen Rhaella, and Joanna Lannister, Lady of Casterly Rock now, were inseparable as girls. They say Princess Ariella takes lovers but all she really needs to warm her bed at night is power.

It is a terrible, terrible recklessness that seizes him when he hears this, but then… Julus has never been all that wise. So when he walks with Ariella that night - it amuses her to let him try and woo her, he suspects - he whispers to her, “Have you ever bedded a man of king’s blood, my lady princess?”

She raises one imperious eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me that purple eyes make a king of you, Julus d’Altari?”

Julus grins. He has black l’Wilima hair from his mother in spite of his violet eyes, so he can see her point, he supposes. “Have you not heard the ballad now making its way through your Seven Kingdoms? About dragons hidden in cliffs?” He knows the ballad exists in Westeros now, as well as in the Free Cities, because it is one of his aunts who wrote it, it’s cousins of his who lead minstrel groups to sing it.

There are subtler ways to power, whispers in the right ears, his grandmother liked to say. And Julus, though never hugely interested in power or crowns or thrones, is interested in his family. He is interested in keeping abreast of just what they’re up to. Daeron’s line, Aegon’s line, they are entrenched, but they say King Aerys grows madder every year, they say his Hand Tywin Lannister is the true ruler.

Julus knows enough that his family’s chance may come soon, one way or another. And mayhaps it’s time that someone starts to seek allies in Westeros. Now that the chance has arisen, it would be wrong of him not to take it, now wouldn’t it?

“Oh, a dragonseed then. Little better,” Ariella fires back, tossing her hair. Julus shrugs.

“They say my ancestor loved yours, and she loved him in return,” he says mildly. "That my other ancestor was passed over as King because his father was a madman. By two reckonings I could be far more than a mere dragonseed."

Ariella studies him for a long, long time with her black eyes fixed on his own. “So sing me a song of the dragons in the cliffs,” she invites him with a sharp smile.

In the end, Julus knows his blood isn’t precisely why Ariella marries him. Oh, she finds the idea of wedding an heir to the Iron Throne in secret amusing, finds the potential of it all appealing, but… In the end she chooses him because as things stand, in Dorne he is a nobody. And nobodies are better choices for a woman who wants to keep her power intact. One of her own lords would have had influence to try and take some of it; a lord from elsewhere in Westeros would think ruling in his wife’s name to be his very right.

Julus? He shrugs and turns his attention to his wife’s navy. Dorne does not have the resources to support a large one, but he will not have it that a child of his line will inherit a slipshod naval force, even if it must needs be small.

He’s the one who asks that Doran be squired at a seafaring house, and so it is that the boy is sent to Salt Shore. He’s surprised Ariella agrees, actually, after the deaths of Mors and Olyvar, after the miscarriages and the girl who barely lived to draw breath. (He always thinks of her as Livia, a variant on his own mother’s name, because of her violet eyes, but they never truly named her.)

Elia is born nine years after Doran and they think she will go the way of Mors and Olyvar and her sister, but the little girl clings on. Julus tries hard not to think about the letter from Lucen, his crown-obsessed cousin who’s now gone from Lys and gotten himself caught up with a mummer’s troupe. Lucen claims that he has finally assured the victory of their line, victory bought with blood and a red priest. Victory bought, if the letter is true, in the very same month as Elia’s birth.

No, Julus finds that he does not want to think about that at all.

Oberyn is born last, all Dornish heat (and mayhaps dragonfire). Trouble almost from the start, unlike calm Doran and sweet Elia - though Julus suspects Elia would be much more like Oberyn if she let her self-control slip, if her health permitted it. Ariella wants Elia and Oberyn to marry Tywin and Joanna Lannister’s golden twins, but then Joanna dies birthing a dwarf son and Tywin Lannister sends Ariella and the children away with a mocking offer for Elia to wed his dwarf.

“All he thinks the daughter of a Dornishwoman and a Free Cities adventurer is worth,” Julus says wryly as Ariella paces her solar, raging. “Of course, if he knew he’d be like to wed Cersei to Oberyn in a heartbeat and place them on the Iron Throne.”

The look Ariella gives him then, the smile that curves her lips, stops his heart. Because for all he is the one to return Blackfyre and Brightflame to Westeros, the truth is Julus wants no part of the crown now. They have had to attend at King’s Landing on occasion, such as when Rhaegar Targaryen was knighted before the court and as many high lords as could get south, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the way Aerys’ mad eyes track everyone who draws his suspicion, doesn’t like how crushed in spirit Queen Rhaella seems to be. And if that is because she reminds him of the portraits of his grandmother Senya, who never seemed to let anything at all break her, well, that is for him alone to know.

He especially did not like the way Aerys had looked at him. Julus is supposed to be no more than Ariella’s consort to the world, but Aerys had caught him by the chin and looked long into his eyes, as violet as the king’s.

“Ariella, no. You can’t be considering telling -”

“No, no, don’t worry about that, my love. I would never trust Tywin Lannister with any secret, particularly not this one.”

It is, perhaps, a kindness, that a fall from a horse only a few years later proves fatal for Julus. It’s just after word has come that Steffon and Cassana Baratheon have died on their way home from the Free Cities, seeking a highborn Valyrian bride for Prince Rhaegar. Julus is mildly surprised that none of his cousins were sent to the Baratheons, as he did send word of the search back to Lorath and Morosh, but he is far more unsettled by the strange gleam in Ariella’s eyes. Thinking about it, wondering what she means to do, he’s not paying his horse enough mind. Never the best of riders, he dies in the deserts outside Sunspear before anyone thinks to seek him.

His wife and daughter mourn, his sons grieve the less for knowing him less, and they all hold his secret. It’s not what is in Ariella Martell’s mind when she accepts the offer of Rhaegar for Elia (though she does wonder just how much Aerys’ new eunuch of a spymaster knows of Julus’ family). All she is thinking that Tywin refused her children, insulted her daughter on top of that, and now it is her Elia who takes the place Tywin wanted for his girl.

It is, perhaps, another kindness that when the Rebellion comes, it is Doran who rules in Dorne.

 


	4. Snake in the Grass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunspear, after the Rebellion.

“How can you say we should wait? They killed Elia, killed her children! Marry Arianne to Viserys, declare for him! Avenge our family!” Oberyn rages. “The boy will give us our revenge, and he and Arianne will beget children to fulfill the dreams of Father’s family.”

“As Elia and Rhaegar were meant to?” Doran asks, quietly. He understands his brother’s fury - he too wants revenge, and to realize the d’Altari dream if they can, but now is not the time. “We must wait, Oberyn. Robert is too strong now, with the might of all the country behind him.”

“The Reach would rise for Viserys.” It’s a mark of how badly he wants this that Oberyn will suggest that; the idea of aligning with the Reach is alien to any Dornishman. Doran rubs his temples to ward off a headache.

“The Reach, perhaps. Can Dorne and the Reach, and mayhaps some sellsword companies, stand against the North, Riverlands, Vale, Westerlands, Storm-”

“The Stormlands are held by an eight-year-old!”

“In name only, and the king you wish to crown is eight as well, my daughter whom you would make a queen only five.” Doran catches his brother’s wrist. “Oberyn, please.”

Oberyn finally stops pacing, whirling back to face Doran and for a moment… No one noticed just how alike Oberyn and Elia were, under Elia’s fragile appearance. But Doran knows that tilt of the head, that snapping anger, and, oh… Would that they could do what Oberyn wants to do so dearly. If they had any chance of success Doran would agree, would see the Trident run red again, stain the Blackwater and Shipbreaker Bay, the sea below the cliffs of Casterly Rock with blood. Though not the snows around Winterfell, though the Starks paid as much as their own family has in this war, really. Who can say, after all, if Lyanna Stark went with Rhaegar by choice? Oberyn was at Harrenhal, and even he grudgingly admits the wolf girl looked more startled and embarrassed by Rhaegar crowning her than pleased. Even he admits she didn’t encourage it, and very few would dare deny a Targaryen. Before.

“We have to wait,” he says aloud. “We have to wait because they’ll expect it. Why do you think Jon Arryn is here? You haven’t been quiet and they are _ready_ for us. You know as well as I that we haven’t the men, that we rely on Daeron’s lies for our defense. Even Father’s small navy will only give us so much. We cannot fight alone, and after Aerys…” He shakes his head.

“After Aerys, what?” Oberyn snaps, fists clenched at his side.

“After Aerys, the people don’t want any more Targaryens. They’re tired of madness and if Robert Baratheon had not condoned Tywin Lannister’s actions, I might even agree with them. As it is… As it is, we will bide our time, brother. We will have our vengeance, I promise you that.”

This promise is one he means to keep, when he could not keep the promise to Elia that she could always come home, that she and her children would be safe as any Martell (any d’Altari) should be. And so he smiles and nods and promises Jon Arryn the good behavior of his brother. A few years later he agrees to betroth his Trystane to Arya Stark - it’s a fair match, and really, who owes who in all this? Rhaegar chose Lyanna over Elia, but Lyanna died here in Dorne.

He even agrees that Quentyn shall wed the baby Princess Myrcella, though her age matches better to Trys - an older son for a more illustrious bride.

Perhaps one of these marriages will indeed take place. But even as he puts his seal to papers, the Archon of Tyrosh’s daughter plays in the Water Gardens, and contacts of Oberyn’s in Braavos slip letters between Sunspear and a house where Ser Willem Darry lives with two children, the last heirs of Aegon V’s line.

At the same time, he wonders why Lemore d’Altari, a cousin who had once planned to be the septa with charge of Rhaenys and Aegon, who after the war had all but agreed to come to the Water Gardens to teach Arianne and Trystane (and Quentyn, before Doran was forced to send him to Yronwood) has apparently taken up with some sellsword called Griff instead. At least,  if her brother can be believed. Tereus, her brother, is now raising her twins - this cousin is not as pristine as white septa’s robes would suggest, but the freedoms worshippers of Lorath’s Winged Lady believe in seem to cause more relaxed attitudes even among followers of other faiths.

 **  
**There is something off about it all, but there’s little Doran can do. And with his marriage falling to pieces, his daughter growing ever more rebellious (why is she so _angry_?), and his brother always wanting to know how much longer they must wait, he has little time to wonder about it.


	5. To Keep Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A secret dragon and a laughing lion - or, the other time House d'Altari returned to Westeros.

Julus D’Altari became a sea captain and wed a princess. His sister Julilla is a different sort of person, Lorathi to her bones. She cares nothing for crowns and dragons and chairs made of swords. It's the cliffs she loves, the blue/green/grey of Lorath Bay.

And it is the city's patron goddess. All her life Julilla has knelt in prayer to the Winged Lady, and it is to her goddess that she pledges herself, heart and soul. She wears the crimson stole and white linen dress of the Lady's priestesses, and never dreams of more.

Her daughter is another matter. The priests and priestesses of the Temple are not bound to chastity, not when their goddess is a fertility goddess. So Iriena d'Altari comes into the world as one of many fruits of the turn of year celebrations. Her mother tells her that her flame-red hair comes from a Westerosi Riverlander, but her violet eyes are her dragon blood.

Iriena is not her mother. She loves the Temple, its marble floors and red columns, the towering statue of the Lady, the scent of incense and quiet gurgle of the purification fount. But she loves these things less for the sake of faith than because the Temple is the only home she knows. Which is why, in the end, she cannot take the red and white as her mother does. Not when she has no true faith. Iriena respects faith enough that she won’t pretend to have it.

Instead, she takes her knowledge of the herbalist’s arts and opens a shop. And her ;ife is quiet and calm till the day a Westerosi boy with hair like sunlight and eyes green like the leaves of summer walks into her shop. Gerion Lannister puts aside his crimson and gold, and his plans to tour Norvos and Qohor, and instead stays with her, helping in the shop and holding her at night in her narrow bed. He teaches her to dance like the nobles in Westeros do, tells her eyes are lovely as any dragon queen’s, and almost she tells him why she has Valyrian eyes. Almost. But she knows better than to share such a secret before its time. He leaves for home but then he comes back, hand out to her and their little girl, and Iriena steps onto the gangplank and goes with him, to Westeros and Casterly Rock and a pretty little stone house on the outskirts of Lannisport where they can live like a family. When his brother doesn't expect him at the Rock, that is.

 

Gerion loves their little girl, the girl with his eyes, named for his laughter and his wide smile. He swings her up on his shoulders and calls her his rose-gold princess. Sometimes when he does, Iriena thinks she might tell him the truth of it, that she is a dragon as he is a lion. But it was his brother who killed the last Targaryens of Westeros, and she dare not. 

When the sickness takes her, though, she whispers her secrets to her daughter, her beautiful Joy with laughing green eyes just like her father’s.

 **  
**Iriena never strove for anything but faith and love, never cared for crowns. But her daughter’s hair shines red-gold by sunlight and candlelight, gleams like a crown. That’s enough, isn’t it?


	6. Winged Lion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joy Hill is more Westerosi than Lorathi, but still she keeps her secrets like any good d'Altari.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partly another perspective on the Jon/Joy wedding.

Sometimes Joy Hill wonders if her mother would have let Gerion Lannister take them back to Westeros with him had she known how it would all turn out. Would she have boarded the ship with Joy clinging to her hand if she had known a fever trifling to Westerosi was much crueler to Lorathi, and would carry her off in less than two years’ time? And that afterwards, less than a year later, Gerion would vanish on a fool’s quest, chasing a Valyrian sword lost centuries before?

She thinks possibly not, but there is, of course, naught to be done now. Iriena is dead, Gerion is lost, and Joy is the Lannister bastard - well, the _official_ Lannister bastard. There are rumors about all of Genna Lannister’s children, and Joy strongly suspects Tion and Red Walder of being sired by someone other than Ser Emmon, though Cleos is clearly his son and Lyonel probably is. It seems like something Aunt Genna would do; give her husband an heir and a spare, then go her own way and if the other children are some other man’s get, then ah well. They’re still half-Lannister and officially legitimate, which is all that would be truly relevant.

She hasn’t been back to the little stone house on the outskirts of Lannisport, the one her father bought for her and her mother (and himself, when his lordly brother didn’t command his presence at the Rock) since her mother’s death, but she goes back there with Tyrek just before her wedding. She wishes Jon were there but it wouldn’t be proper, and so it’s just her and her cousin, and a pair of red cloaks who wait outside.

“Will you bring Jon here once you’re married, or stay at Starfall till it’s time to return to court?” Tyrek asks, coughing from the dust.

“Truthfully I don’t know,” Joy admits. “It probably makes more sense to just stay at Starfall, and I think Jon and Edric are both meant to for a while - Jon being heir until Ned marries, and all - but…” She isn’t sure if she wants to return here or not, considering that every room echoes with her father’s laughter and her mother’s voice. She came back only for her mother’s things, the things she wasn’t allowed to bring with her to the Rock.

Tall tea glasses, their bases worked metal. A book of Lorathi recipes, including the mix for the d’Altari family wedding mead - in Lorath they make many kinds of mead, flavored with various things, and each family has a recipe for specific additions to make their wedding mead. Handleless ceramic mugs. Incense her mother kept from the Temple, a gift from Joy’s grandmother. Even some clothes - Joy had long outgrown her own Lorathi-style clothes but some of her mother’s might still fit.

She hadn’t been able to bring much of this with her - it had only been kept safe because it was known the cottage belonged to a member of House Lannister and no one wanted the trouble of looting it. Now, though - well, with Jon recently knighted but still sworn to Renly’s service, they’ll have better chambers at court than either of them do now and she can bring more things.

They don’t bother going back to court, instead sending a few servants from Lannisport with Joy’s things - the Steward of Lannisport, Ser Stafford Lannister, is family, after all, and even though he doesn’t know them Daven does, so Daven takes care of it. Joy and Tyrek take ship for Starfall instead, because the wedding is too close to travel back to the capital and then go south.

At Starfall, Edric and his visiting guest Prince Trystane are as politely friendly as Joy could expect, and the servants surprisingly deferential. But then, they’ve been without any lady save for Shiera Sand since Lady Allyria went north, and as Shiera says herself, she’s not much of a lady.

“And I wouldn’t want to be,” she adds with a wicked smile, grey eyes sparkling with mischief. Joy wonders how Shiera, Jon’s Dayne cousin, has eyes a match to Jon’s Stark-grey eyes, but she doesn’t ask about it. She understands family secrets too well to pry, at least until the day she tells Jon her own. That won’t be the wedding night, but soon after, she thinks.

Between them, she and Shiera get everything ready for the wedding. Shiera knows Starfall and its servants, the handful of petty lords and landed knights who owe their fealty to House Dayne, and Joy of course knows very well how to run a household and prepare for celebrations, weddings included. So by the time Jon arrives with his mother, stepfather, and Baratheon half-siblings, Lord Renly and Lady Margaery accompanying them, as well as Jon’s Stark half-sister Arya, there’s nothing left to do.

Myrielle comes with Tyrion a day later, and they bring with them a wedding cloak, yellow with a red lion, Lannister colors reversed. It won’t match her tunic dress and sash, all in shades of blue as is proper for a Lorathi wedding gown, near so well as the pale purple and silver of the Dayne cloak Lady Ashara brought will, but of course that doesn’t matter.

“Well, I suppose it’s better than no proper cloak,” Tyrek says. Joy shrugs; it’s fine work, she thinks it looks like Aunt Genna made it, which is nice. Her aunt won’t be coming, she knows, but she sends a note and a gift with Tyrion, a lion medallion necklace made of rose gold. According to the note, Joy’s father had it made, insisting that his sister promise to give it to her for her wedding.

It’s early, but Joy puts it on immediately. When she sees Jon later, out on one of the balconies, he glances at it. “That’s new. It looks a bit like the one the Queen always wears?”

“Mm-hmm. My father’s last gift to me, apparently,” Joy says, with a bittersweet little smile, and Jon comes up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist. She leans into him, the pair of them watching the sea far below. “I like your sister - Arya, I mean. She and Shiera get on well.” They did, the two of them out in the training yard with the boys, sparring with quarterstaffs.

“They should, they’re - much alike,” Jon says, and Joy smiles a little; her betrothed really is terrible with secrets, and she’s fairly sure she knows the truth about Arthur Dayne’s daughter by now - her black-backed jackal pup Brynden follows her in a way almost identical to how Ghost and Nymeria trail Jon and Arya, among other things - but she doesn’t much care, either.

Dragons should keep each other’s secrets, after all.

The wedding goes as well as can be expected, considering Septon Gareth doesn’t approve of the Lorathi vows and incense, the Northern opening to the ceremony or the wreath of weirwood leaves. In truth Joy and Jon both would prefer to wed in Starfall’s Stone Garden, which is not a temple to the Lady or so elaborate as the Rock’s Stone Garden, nor a true godswood like at Winterfell, but a lovely, peaceful spot overlooking the sea. But Daynes, traditionally, are devout followers of the Seven, and a young man who is heir to Starfall until his cousin has a child cannot wed but in the sept. So they compromise.

The feast is better, Joy and Jon getting a little carried away when they kiss during their first dance. They don’t risk dancing again, and Joy partners Tyrek and Ned and Arthur, and then Trystane Martell. She is busy avoiding Gerold Dayne - he calls himself Darkstar like an idiot, but she doesn’t like his cruel mouth - and so finds herself partnered with Prince Oberyn Martell without even considering it. The prince was not a planned guest, having arrived to collect his nephew and finding a wedding hours away. He’s an old friend of Lady Ashara so he stayed, but Joy is nervous, knowing the Viper’s hatred of Lannisters. But he is looking at her with curiosity, not hate.

“Congratulations on your marriage, Lady Dayne. Tell me, did your cousin say your mother was of the d’Altari family in Lorath?” he asks as he turns her in the dance. Joy’s heart skips a beat; didn’t her mother say that her sailor uncle Julus had married -?

“Yes, Your Highness, she was. Iriena d’Altari, daughter of Julilla the priestess.”

“Julilla?” Prince Oberyn says, those dark eyes narrowing as he studies her. “That is… very interesting, Lady Dayne. Really quite a coincidence, that we should have such a thing in common as a family tie. I wonder what your lordly uncle would say if he knew.”

By the Lady… “I do not know, and would rather not find out.”

“Wise of you,” he says, a flash of pain in his eyes, and she knows what he must be thinking of, because she knows what Lord Tywin once ordered. Then Prince Oberyn smiles a wry, sharp smile, spinning her out and bowing as the dance dictates. “Best of luck to you, little cousin. Perhaps we shall speak again,” he murmurs so no one but Joy can hear.

All in all, Joy is glad when she dances with Lord Renly next, his laughing charm so like her father’s, and perfect for making her forget the disquiet Prince Oberyn left her with. She’s dancing with Arthur again, laughing at the sight of Shiera making Tyrek blush Lannister crimson, when Ned calls for the bedding.

**  
Tunic dresses, it so happens, are easily removed, and then Jon’s pushed in the door and Joy really doesn’t want to think about anything but the two of them anymore anyway.**


	7. Sorcery and the Mummer's Farce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If what happened to him becomes pointless, then something inside him will shatter to pieces.

The story that Varys will one day tell Tyrion Lannister is true, to a point. He was indeed part of a mummers’ troop, he was cut by a man who wanted his male parts and his blood for a spell. What he does not tell Tyrion are the three things he himself did not know until long after that day.

 

First, that the man who bought him was a man known to the head of the troop, because a few years before he’d been part of it. Because a few years ago, he’d left one of the women, a puppeteer, pregnant. Second, that the girl left pregnant was Varys’ own mother, and the man who used him for a spell his father.

 

One would think that, after all of this, the very last thing Varys of Lys, then Myr, then Pentos would want is to advance the plans of a man named Lucen d’Altari. And yet, through his years in Myr, the obsession is always there beneath all he does - he must know who it was that cut him, and why. His father’s death, so very sadly, is neither peaceful nor quick, but Varys then learns the second thing. He now knows that the spell was to ensure that the house calling itself d’Altari, a house that claims descent from both the black dragon and a senior line of the red, one day reclaims the Targaryen name and the Iron Throne. It occurs to Varys that the man who helps such a plan to fruition would, regardless of whether or not he is “whole”, have managed to reach a position from which he could not easily be unseated. If he could become indispensable, or failing that exceedingly difficult to replace (as no man nor woman is truly indispensable), then no one will ever be able to tie him down and do as they will with him. None would dare to wound him, maim him, again. He would never need sell himself, let people do as they wished with his body, within reason, just to survive.

 

And so, yes, he ran to Pentos, but not immediately. First, he joins a Moroshi caravan, for one of the things that he learned amongst the screams was that Lucen d’Altari is a descendant of Rion and Daena’s youngest son, Jacen, that the Moroshi d’Altaris are merchants while their Lorathi cousins jockey for influence and power in the Cliff City. As it happens, Lucen d’Altari has three known children. Tereus, Lemore - who is a Westerosi-style septa, of all things, serving in Braavos just now - and Serra, a pretty young thing with blonde hair and blue eyes. They do not know what he did to their father, but it so happens that Lucen told his children what he did, that Lemore is a septa not by choice but so that she can be of use to the family enterprise.

 

It seems that a cousin of Lucen’s, descendant of Rion and Daena’s older children Senya and Daron (whose children wed; the d’Altaris practice only cousin incest to avoid detection), has wed the Princess of Dorne. It seems that he has three children who live in Westeros and who might one day manage to make a move for the throne.

 

The third thing Varys learns about his castration is that Elia Martell was born in the very same month.

 

Later, he will befriend a Pentoshi sellsword called Illyrio Mopatis, and they will go into business together. Varys’ sister Serra will visit, at Varys’ request, and together they will bring Illyrio, whose mother’s bloodline is in Westeros, the descendant of a foolish lord who built a white castle and entertained a prince crowned with dreams, into the fold. He has grievances too, does he not? Was his father not banished on the word of an albino sorcerer and kinslayer? More to the point, will his trade routes not benefit, if Westeros has leadership indebted to him?

 

Later still, and indeed almost by chance (or the will of a wizard?) Varys comes to the attention of King Aerys II Targaryen. To be spymaster to a king who fears his shadow and thus has need of little mice that whisper is a good first step. In Westeros he calls his children little birds, and he himself becomes known as the Spider. Aerys has an heir with no wife. A word to Tereus and no d’Altari women make the journey to Volantis when Steffon Baratheon goes there in search of a Valyrian bride for his cousin’s son, though Julus Martell sends word of his own so that they will.

 

Julus does not understand, no one understands because Varys does not want them to. There must be a point to all this. If he has suffered, then his suffering must be worth something, to him as well as the man who caused it. He wishes to be needed, too difficult to remove for anyone to bother, but if what happened to him becomes pointless then something in him will shatter to pieces. He is whole in spirit if not body, and he must stay that way.

 

So it is that he sings a song of cliff dragons to Aerys Targaryen, playing on his love of grandeur to say that his grandchildren may unite all the bloodlines of the dragon, on his paranoia to assure him that, should he wed his son to a woman of the senior d’Altari blood, the rest of them will cease to plot. (This much, incidentally, is true so far as Varys has been able to determine.) But he cannot pick a Lorathi girl. His nobles would question it, might even rebel in the name of one of the Lorathi, and so they must be more subtle. As it happens, there is a branch of the senior line right here, in Westeros, from a line that has married with the dragons before. Who would question another match?

 

An added sweetener to it, the girl is someone once rejected by Tywin Lannister, the man who dared to think his daughter a worthy mate to a dragon.

 

It is so very easy, and Lucen’s spell is effective in ways he could never have dreamed.


End file.
